1st Edition

Poetry Mentor Texts Making Reading and Writing Connections, K-8

By Lynne Dorfman, Rose Cappelli Copyright 2012

    Building on the success of Mentor Texts and Nonfiction Mentor Texts, authors Lynne R. Dorfman and Rose Cappelli now turn their attention to poetry. In Poetry Mentor Texts , Lynne and Rose show teachers how to use poems in both reading and writing workshops and across content areas. Written in a friendly, conversational tone, this practical book explores a variety of poetic forms, including poems that inspire response, list poems, acrostic poems, persona poems, and poems for two voices-;versatile forms of poetry that can be used in every grade. Each of these poetic forms has its own chapter featuring five poems with applications for both reading and writing classrooms. Reading connections present skills and strategies to move students forward as readers, helping them to build fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, phonemic awareness, and phonics. Writing connections help students and teachers discover their own voices and grow as poets and wordsmiths as they try out many poetic forms. Poems help students at all grade levels learn to better address complex reading texts, offering them a chance to dig deeper and use higher-order thinking skills. Additionally, Your Turn writing lessons provide a scaffold for seamlessly moving from modeling to the shared or guided experience and the transfer to independent work. The Treasure Chest offers a brief annotation of the poems discussed in each chapter as well as companion pieces that extend and enhance the work of the reading and writing classroom. Poetry Mentor Texts helps teachers across the curriculum guide their students to become not only skilled readers and writers but also more empathetic human beings.

    Introduction; Chapter 1: Getting Started; Chapter 2: Poetry to Inspire Respo; Chapter 3: List Poems Are for Everyone; Chapter 4: Acrostic Poetry: Accessible and Challenging; Chapter 5: The Persona Poem: Writing in the Voice of Another; Chapter 6: Poetry for Two Voices; Chapter 7: A Treasure Chest of Books

    Biography

    Lynne R. Dorfman teach in writing, writing/reading connections, reading in the content areas for struggling adolescents, and children. Rose Cappelli is a reading specialist in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where she has taught for the past twenty-five years. Both authors also work with the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project at West Chester University, are frequent presenters at conferences nationwide, and teach several graduate-level courses together.

    "This wonderfully laid-out, practical book explores ways of getting students interested in poetry." - CHOICE
    "As a veteran teacher, I prided myself on being a 'poetry teacher.' After all, we memorized poems, tried to figure out what they meant, and even devoted a unit to the study of poetry. Haiku, limericks, color poems and fill-in-the-blank poems were just a few types we explored. However, it wasn’t until I started reading this book that I discovered the true magnetic force of the written word.  - MiddleWeb